Zimbabwe’s biggest telecoms firm Econet Wireless may have reached a breakthrough regarding a feud with its mobile money agents.

Last month, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) received complaints that Econet was barring its EcoCash agents from also selling a mobile money service from rival Telecel called Telecash.

Econet is Zimbabwe’s biggest telecoms firm with more than eight million mobile network subscribers and over three million EcoCash mobile money platform users. It competes with Telecel Zimbabwe and state-run NetOne, which are all revamping their mobile money payment services.

But speaking at a Tuesday launch of a free education website access service called ‘Econet Zero’, Econet’s services chief executive officer Darlington Mandivenga told ITWeb Africa that its mobile money agents are ‘free’ to sell any service of their choice.

“Our contracts with mobile money agents are not exclusive. The agents are free to do business with whoever they want,” Mandivenga said.

“We have not lost even one EcoCash client. People are happy about what we are offering them,” Mandivenga added.

The executive then went on to say that concerns of Econet bullying agents were only being ‘peddled’ by the media.

“We only read about that in the newspapers. There are no issues,” he said.

However, the RBZ contradicts Mandivenga’s statement.

“It has come to the attention of the RBZ that some mobile payment system operators are entering into agreements with agents in terms of which the agent is precluded from acting for any other mobile payment system operator,” the RBZ has said in a statement.

"The said exclusivity agreements are likely to have an adverse effect on competition and may be detrimental to the smooth operation of payment systems in the country.”

Econet has also been reportedly involved in disagreements with local banks for allegedly refusing to open up its USSD platform for full integration with the banking system.

But Mandivenga said Econet has since patched up its differences with banks: a move that could pave the way for possible integration.

“That is now a thing of the past if ever there was an issue,” Mandivenga said.